Trump Firing of HHS Inspector General Just the Latest in an Ongoing Conflict

President Trump’s firing of HHS Inspector General Christi Grimm late last week was not the first time that Grimm had come under the president’s critical eye.

Back in 2020, Trump sought to replace Grimm — who was running the inspector general’s office — after her office issued a report detailing shortages of personal protective equipment, ventilators, and other supplies in hospitals nationwide during the beginning of the COVID pandemic. Grimm, who started at the inspector general’s office in 1999, testified at a House hearing a month after the report was released, saying that “independence is the cornerstone of what any office of inspector general does … I personally and professionally cannot let the idea of providing unpopular information drive decision-making in the work that we do.”

According to the New York Times, Trump — who was reportedly embarrassed by the shortcomings cited in the report — called the report “wrong” and wrote on Twitter, “Why didn’t the I.G. [inspector general], who spent 8 years with the Obama Administration (Did she Report on the failed H1N1 Swine Flu debacle where 17,000 people died?), want to talk to the Admirals, Generals, V.P. & others in charge, before doing her report.”

A month after Grimm testified before the House, Trump nominated Jason Weida, an assistant U.S. attorney in Boston, to become HHS inspector general. Weida was never confirmed, and Grimm remained at the inspector general’s office, retaining her position as principal deputy inspector general. She was later nominated by President Biden for the top job, and was confirmed by the Senate in February 2022.

In the latest salvo, Trump fired Grimm late Friday along with at least 16 other inspectors general, according to ABC News. The story noted that the two-sentence email notifying Grimm of the firing said, “On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that due to changing priorities your position as Inspector General … is terminated, effective immediately. Thank you for your service.”

The firings appeared not to comply with a requirement that members of Congress be given 30 days’ notice prior to the firing of an inspector general, and provide reasons for the firing. The leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee sent a letter Tuesday to President Trump about the firings, reminding him of the 30-day rule and requesting more information.

“While IGs aren’t immune from committing acts requiring their removal, and they can be removed by the president, the law must be followed,” wrote senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the committee’s chair and ranking member, respectively. “The communication to Congress must contain more than just broad and vague statements, rather it must include sufficient facts and details to assure Congress and the public that the termination is due to real concerns about the Inspector General’s ability to carry out their mission.”

Watchdog groups panned Trump’s action. “President Trump’s illegal firing of inspectors general betrays his stated goal of promoting government efficiency and will have the predictable, and likely designed, effect of chilling whistleblowers across the federal government from reporting on waste, fraud, and abuse in the Trump administration,” Donald Sherman, executive director and chief counsel of the Committee for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said in an email to MedPage Today. “Ms. Grimm’s dismissal is especially damaging to our public health given that she oversaw numerous reviews of HHS efforts to combat the opioid crisis, and identified billions of dollars in potential recoveries and receivables for the American taxpayer.”

Trump’s action is “clearly not helpful” to the functioning of the HHS inspector general’s office, Robert Steinbrook, MD, director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group, said in a phone interview. “It’s hard to say where this is going, but it certainly is getting started on the wrong foot.”

Steinbrook said that “the inspectors general are supposed to be independent and if they’re doing their job well, they will produce reports critical of Republicans and critical of Democrats, because they follow the facts as they see them … It seems like [the HHS inspector general’s office] is doing its job. If you go to their website, you see almost daily enforcement actions announced this month, and that’s what they’re supposed to be doing.” He noted, as an example of its non-partisanship, that one of the office’s recent reports criticized the FDA for the way it used an “accelerated” approval pathway for three drugs approved during the Obama and Biden administrations.

Currently, the HHS inspector general’s website lists Juliet Hodgkins, principal deputy inspector general, as the highest-ranking member of the leadership team. Hodgkins joined the Office of Inspector General in 2011 and served as the office’s acting chief of staff from 2020 to 2022, according to her bio.

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